Beliaev damping of quasiparticles in a Bose-Einstein condensate

Phys Rev Lett. 2002 Nov 25;89(22):220401. doi: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.89.220401. Epub 2002 Nov 6.

Abstract

We report a measurement of the suppression of collisions of quasiparticles with ground state atoms within a Bose-Einstein condensate at low momentum. These collisions correspond to Beliaev damping of the excitations, in the previously unexplored regime of the continuous quasiparticle energy spectrum. We use a hydrodynamic simulation of the expansion dynamics, with the Beliaev damping cross section, in order to confirm the assumptions of our analysis.